Cephalopods

We've learned a whole lot about frogs, now let's learn about Cephalopods!

There are over 800 different kinds of cephalopods living in the world, and around 11,000 kinds of cephalopods that have gone extinct and are no longer around.

Some cephalopods are really famous, like the octopus or squid, but some you may not have heard of like ammonoids or nautilus.

The super science name for an animal is split up into these parts: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, and sometimes Subclass.
Sometimes there are even more parts like Suborder, Infraorder, Family, Genus or Species.
Humans are:
Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Chordata, Class: Mammalia, Order: Primates, Suborder: Haplorhini, Infraorder: Simiiformes, Family: Hominidae, Genus: Homo, Species: H. sapiens

Scientists use these words to come up with special names for every single animal on the planet from mice to elephants.

Cephalopods are:
Kingdom: Animalia, Phylum: Mollusca, Class: Cephalopoda

The "phylum: Mollusca" actually means that an animal like an octopus is sort of related to a snail!

There are lots of different types of cephalopods, we'll learn about some fun ones next time!


(from: wikipedia - cephalopod)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Frogs and Toads

Colossal Squid

We just learned about the fish called a Blue Tang

Another interesting animal is the Colossal Squid

It is the largest invertibrate ever discovered in the world.

An invertibrate is an animal without a skeleton, like an Octopus or squid.


It was discovered in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.
The colossal squid was around 40 feet long, that's about 7 times taller than a normal person, and as tall as a four story house!

We don't know much about the colossal squid, because we've only ever seen a few in real life!

(from: wikipedia - colossal squid)


Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Ostrich

Octopus

The octopus is a strange looking animal, mostly because it has no bones!
The only hard part is their beak which they use to eat with.

The octopus has three hearts, two for their gills and one for the rest of their bodies.


(from: wikipedia - octopus)

Octopuses are very good at hiding and getting away from danger.
They can squeeze into small spaces since they don't have bones, spit out ink to confuse their enemies, change colors, and if an enemy grabs one of their legs they can even let it get ripped off!

Kid Facts - Blast from the past: Wild Turkey Snood